


The Last of Us: A Fork in The Road

by Turquoiselombax



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 09:53:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 16,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23849248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Turquoiselombax/pseuds/Turquoiselombax
Summary: Ellie has been living in Jacksonville for 5 years and she has been having a hard time figuring out her purpose in life until Dina and Jesse came into her life. Ellie begins to develop romantic feelings for Dina and her life begins to go on an emotional rollercoaster.I was inspired to write this by a dream I had in March 2020
Relationships: Dina & Ellie (The Last of Us), Dina/Ellie (The Last of Us), Ellie & Jesse (The Last of Us), Ellie & Joel (The Last of Us), Ellie & Maria (The Last of Us), Ellie & Tommy (The Last of Us), EllieXDina, Joel & Tommy (The Last of Us)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 62





	1. Chapter 1

It was a pretty day outside, Ellie and Dina were walking together and they were away from camp. The two have been talking and laughing amongst each other. They never knew how numbered their days were with the infected wandering about so they wanted to enjoy the time that they could spend together.

"Hey how come Joel get so concerned with you when you're going out to clear out the infected"? Dina starts up another conversation as she walks through the tall grass.

"Well.." Ellie fiddles with her fingers before she starts up the conversation. "I am like a daughter to him. He had an daughter but she passed during the outbreak." Ellie decides to go off topic since she doesn't like to talk about it much. " Joel has a hard time trusting people, I don't even think he trust his brother that much."

"That's odd but understandable it's hard trusting people in a world like this. Hey Ellie help me with this ladder." Dina bends down to pick up the wooden ladder. The girls placed the ladder on top of a crumbling building. "Ladies first." Dina jokes.

"Oh shut up." Ellie begins to climb up the ladder blushing.

When Ellie reaches the top of the ladder there was a stalker at the top of the building. The stalker happened to see Ellie and begins to run towards her. Ellie screams trying to rush back down the ladder, but the ladder begins to fall backwards with Ellie having a tight grip on the ladder as it fell.

"Ellie"! Dina shouts in panic, she knew that Ellie was going to have a hard impact on the ground and there was nothing that she could do.

Ellie hit the ground on her back, she felt as if the air was blown out of her. Dina rushes to her side and tries to help her up. "Stalker"! Ellie eyes were wide open, pointing at the stalker jumping down.

As the stalker was falling down it hit a huge rock causing it to die.

"Oh my God"! Ellie gasps.

Dina carefully pulls Ellie up. "Are you okay, Ellie"?

"My back is in pain, but I'm better than that stalker over there". Ellie still managed to get her sentence out although she was still out of breath.

" Good thing it's only one of them" Dina was relieved that Ellie was alright.

" Well Joel said that there shouldn't be too many of them. We only should worry about the trespassers".

" Oh shit"! Dina notices a group of clickers running their way.

Ellie and Dina pulls out their gun to shoot at the clickers, but they were out of bullets. Ellie and Dina began to run away from them. The clickers have evolved over the past five years so they could run a lot faster than before. The girls run into a dark building nearby. The girls startled someone who was also hiding from the infected and the guy shot at Dina. Luckily Ellie tackles Dina from behind and they both fell to the floor. The bullet ends up hitting and killing the clicker behind them instead. Ellie and Dina gets off of the floor and glares at the guy.

Dina realized who it was that nearly killed her, it was her ex boyfriend, Jesse. "Jessie"! Dina snaps.

"Your welcome"! Jesse shrugs his shoulders.

"Guys cut it out!" Ellie rushes to the door to barricade it.

Jesse and Dina gives Ellie a lending hand with the door. Once the door was barricaded then they began to look for a way out.

"Where's the Exit"? Dina was beginning to panic, she knew that the barricade wouldn't last them long. There was barely any sunlight in that building so it made it hard to see. 

"Just keep going, I think were close". Jesse was hopping over things on the floor to keep from tripping 

They finally made it out of the building, but a stalker pounces on Ellie and she falls to the ground. Ellie was trying to keep the stalker from biting her. Jesse shoots the stalker a few times and Ellie pushes the corpse off of her. 

Ellie stands up. "That was a close one".

" What's even more close is that my head was almost blown to pieces". Dina rolls her eyes reloading her gun with bullets that Jesse gave her. 

" Hey it was either the bullet or get bitten, if you would have got bitten then I would have to kill you". Jesse chuckles.

"You're such an ass" Dina growls.

"Hey can't we all just calm down and be happy that were alive". Ellie was trying to brighten up the mood.

" Well were scheduled to go out tomorrow so hopefully we will survive round two". Jesse begins to walk off. 

" I'm surprised that you survive the last round. You weren't like that in bed". Dina follows behind Jesse. 

Ellie chuckles to herself. " Dina, stop being such a dick".

"Hey someone has to be the dick around here. It's obvious that he isn't packing any". Dina glares at Jesse.

The three of the walked together for about ten minutes to make sure that they were safe from the infected. They took a small break and stared at the gorgeous skies.

" How far out are we from camp"? Ellie asks Jesse.

"We shouldn't be too far out we should make it back at camp before the party." Jesse begins to walk down the rock stairs. "If we keep heading south then we should be fine".

"You are the boss" Ellie replies, following Jesse and Dina down the stairs.


	2. The Trio

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ellie, Dina and Jesse traveling on their way home.

As the three of them were walking down the stairs Jesse accidentally trips on a wire causing a small explosion. 

"Jesse! Holy shit man!' Ellie watches as Jesse quickly recovers from the explosion.

"I'm okay." He assures, coughing a bit. He had a bit of dust on him.

"Well at least we know that this place has traps too. Thanks for being the test dummy." Dina could not get enough of giving Jesse a hard time.

Jesse decides to ignore her smart remark and continues to walk down the stone stairs carefully along with Dina and Ellie. Once they reached the bottom of the stairs they spotted a few clickers roaming about.

"Ellie get down!" Jesse whispers, tugging her arm. He and Dina were crouched behind a rectangular roadblock.

Ellie followed their lead and watch out the clickers would twitch a bit before moving on around. There was a particular clicker that was just standing in the middle of the cut off road way. Dina pulled out her knife just in case one of the clickers heads their way. 

"We need to make it over to that bridge." Jesse was trying to think of the easiest route to go and how they were going to get there with the infected around. 

Ellie scoops up a empty glass bottle and throws it over to another abandoned building next to them. Most of the clickers move towards the sound of the glass bottle but it was still that one that was in the middle that didn't move a muscle.

"Go, go, go" Ellie begins to sprint but she still made sure that she was hidden, Jesse and Dina did the same. 

Ellie was a bit further away from Jesse and Dina and the clicker in the middle was quite close to Ellie. Dina took out her knife, sneak up to it and stabs it in the neck. 

The clicker fell down on its back and the three begin to walk their way towards the bridge. Although they were close to the bridge it still was not a walk in the park. The streets were separated from the bridge so that means they would have to jump down to reach the bridge. 

"Golly and I thought those clickers weren't enough" Jesse sighs. "Don't get your hair tangled in a bunch it's only a few jumps down." Dina begins to make her first jump down carefully. 

Ellie was quite shocked at what Dina just said" A few jumps? Do you see how big of a jump we will have to make all three times to get down there?"

"This chick" Jesse sighs before jumping down with Dina he could not believe he was doing this.

Ellie rolls her eyes. What choice did she have this time? Ellie begins to wonder if Dina was really over Jesse. It was hard to tell because of their love hate relationship. 

"Ellie you might want to come with us unless you don't mind turning into one of those things." Dina distracts Ellie from her thoughts.

Ellie shook her head to get herself to snap out of it." I'm coming!" She leaps down. 

Jesse and Dina already made it across the broken street by the time Ellie leaped down, but there was only one problem. Ellie jumping down made the streets a bit more unsteady and the street began to fall down. Ellie screams to the top of her lungs trying to make the biggest leaps of her life. Jesse and Dina couldn't do much but to try to guide her to them. It was starting to get hard for Ellie to see since the gravel was falling from the streets. Ellie was doing okay so far despite of her panicking. Ellie had one more leap of faith she had to take and she would be reunited with her friends. 

"Ellie grab our arms" Jesse and Dina had their hands out ready to grab her.

Ellie leaps and she barely was able to grab a hold of them, Jesse and Dina pulls Ellie up in relieve that they got her in time. The streets fell into the large bodies of water under them. Ellie was in both of their arms hugging them, She collapse onto the floor, bringing Dina and Jesse down with her. She burst out crying in fear of her life, falling to her death was one of her deepest fears and she did not want to go out that way. 

"It's okay, Ellie." Jesse rubs her back to comfort her.

"We're here." Dina adds wiping the tears from her face.

"Let's get out of here." Ellie sniffles. 

The two helps Ellie up and they proceeds to walk to the bridge. 

When they finally made it to the bridge Ellie stares up at the graffiti in awe. 

"Woah look at all these artist." Ellie was very amazed.

Jesse bends down to pick up a half empty spray bottle and tosses it over to Ellie.

Ellie smiles at Jesse. She never told anyone this but she was very dedicated to drawing. She eagerly sprints over to the wall and begins to spray paint. 

"Ooo what shall Ellie draw?" Dina was quite curious to see what she will come up with.

It didn't take long before Ellie was done. "Ta da" Ellie steps away from her drawing, excited about what she has drawn.

"A dick." Jesse raised an eyebrow.

"It's the biggest one I have ever seen, Congratulation on the drawing!" Dina approaches Ellie to high five her.

"You could of drawn anything else, but then you draw that." Jesse shook his head.

"What's wrong, jealous Jesse, JJ" Ellie teases.

Jesse walks over, taking the spray away from Ellie . "Let me show you true art." Jesse begins to draw a horse.

"Actually that's not bad. Here pass it to me." Dina had her hands open so that she could catch the spray bottle. 

Jesse passes Dina the spray can and she painted a flower.

"Aww that is so cute." Ellie yawns.

"Sounds like someone is getting tired." Dina puts down the spray can and she begins to walk south again, Jess follows behind her.

"I am not tired" Ellie lies, grinning at Dina. Ellie walks on the left side of Dina. 

They were suddenly interrupted when they heard a horse approaching them.

"He is so beautiful." Ellie went over to pet the brown horse. 

"Don't startle it. We can use him to ride home." Jesse begins to search through his backpack for a rope. He was able to tie the rope around the horse.

Jesse got the horse to kneel down and he climbs on the horse first, Dina was the second person to climb on the horse followed by Ellie.

"Alright you girls hang on tight." Jesse glanced back at the two. 

Dina held Jesse tightly around his chest while Ellie held Dina tightly around her waist. Ellie closes her eyes and puts her head on Dina's back. She closes her eyes smiling. Jesse nudges the horse and the horse began to head towards their town.

About an hour later they were finally able to see the huge gates that led to their home. They were also greeted by a beautiful sunset upon them.

"I haven't seen a sunset this beautiful in a while." Ellie was taking in the gorgeous scenery upon them. 

"Good thing we're almost home, the dance starts in a few hours." Dina was looking forward to it. 

Jesse and Ellie on the other hand were not looking forward to it at all, they only came to events like this for the food and drinks. 

"Well let's not keep them waiting. Hang on." Jesse tells the horse to gallop and the horse was racing to the gate. 

A minute passed and they were at the gate. The three of them hopped off the horse and the gates opened for them.

"Welcome back" A middle aged man greets them. "Look what we have here another horse." The man was quite excited. "We'll take this fellow off of your hands"

"Thank you." Jesse replies handing the guy the horse. 

"So I'll see you guys tonight." Ellie was getting ready to go home.

"Tonight for sure." Dina and Jesse agrees also going their separate ways.

Ellie opens the door to the log cabin and she plummets on the couch near the fireplace. She had quite a rough day and she was nervous to go to the party, but she wanted to hang out with Dina more than anything. Ellie lays on her back and stares at the ceiling, letting her mind wander of endless possibilities of what could happen.

"Are you going to the party tonight?" A familiar voice came from the kitchen, pulling Ellie out of her deep thoughts.

"Actually Joel I am"

"Your first party as a nineteen year old" Joel chuckles. "Aren't you excited?"

"I mean they have food so who wouldn't be excited about food."

Joel laughs" What did you do today?" He was quite curious on catching up with Ellie and her adventures.

"You know the usual, hanging out with Dina and Jesse" Ellie didn't want to go into detail about where they went or Joel would freak out.

"Well have fun don't have too much to drink"

"Joel you know how much I hate alcohol"

"Yeah, but you do drink a lot of root beer. That's where it starts" Joel laughs even more. 

"Ha ha" Ellie laughs sarcastically.

"Oh and Ellie one more thing" Joel gave her the talk about this before and he felt like this would be the right time to hand it to her. He holds a condom out for her to grab. "Just in case."

"Pshh" Ellie nudges it off" I'm not going to do that, I'll be fine. I'm just hanging out with my two best friends"

Joel trust her judgement. "Sorry if this made you uncomfortable, but I just want you to be safe."

"You have nothing to worry about." Ellie gives Joel a comforting hug.

Joel hugs Ellie back and smiles. Ellie's facial expression changed to a sad, concerned look, Joel wouldn't have to worry about that at all because she is gay. She begins to feel guilty about not telling him. She could feel her palms sweating. Ellie stops the hug and stands up.

"Well I should get to bed so I could be well rested for the party."

"Alright I will catch you later"

Joel heads towards his room while Ellie walks up the stairs to hers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew almost 2,000 words on this chapter. Thank you guys so much for reading. I will upload chapter 3 and 4 next week but until then I will be streaming and studying for my finals.


	3. Dirty Dancing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ellie goes to the party with her friends and trouble sparks up.

It was 6:45 pm, fifteen minutes before the dance began. Ellie was rushing to get dressed, she was not the type of girl to get all fancy up for these events so she decides to wear a blue shirt with stripes and jeans. As she rushes down the stairs she trips, but Tommy was able to catch her.

"Woah Ellie, you're in such a rush" Tommy chuckles.

"She is going to her first dance as a nineteen year old." Joel informed Tommy.

"You still have plenty of time the party is right down the street." Tommy said.

"Yeah, but the early bird gets the worm, see ya!" Ellie leaves through the front door.

"The only thing is that its late at night" Tommy shouts although he knew that Ellie probably didn't hear him.

Ellie begins to walk towards the party. Her eyes were filled with awe when she saw the LED lights flashing all over town. She also heard the upbeat music playing, her heart began to flutter in excitement. In front of her was a line of people waiting to get in, so it was probably going to take a minute for her to get in.

Meanwhile Dina was already warming up for the party. She was dancing with another guy in the middle of the dance floor while people were sitting down, eating and waiting for their friends to come. Jesse was not too far behind watching Dina dance with the guy.

"She's just a tease" he mutters to himself, sipping on some wine.

Ten long minutes of waiting Ellie was finally able to get inside. She began to explore the establishment before she goes and meet up with her friends. A few minutes later she runs into Jesse and joins him.

"Hey Jesse" she greets

Jesse greets her back with a nod. "she's putting on quite the show."

The two were watching Dina dance with the guy, immerse with her moves.

"I will give you guys two weeks until you guys are back together" Ellie grins at Jesse.

"Not going to happen" Jesse pause "Did she say something to you?"

"Make it one week" Ellie replies.

"Your old man really laid into me today." Jesse starts up another conversation.

"What did he say?" Ellie was still in tune on Dina's dancing

"Another big lecture about my patrols don't go here, don't go there, funny how involved he gets when you're scheduled to go out"

"Yeah" Ellie sighs wishing that she was the guy dancing with Dina.

"Hey, I'll be back. I'm going to go to the restroom" Jesse lays his empty glass down, walking off into the crowd.

"Alright" Ellie decides to stop watching Dina and goes to grab a cake.

Meanwhile the song had just ended peacefully, Dina and the guy gives the crowd a graceful bow as the crowd claps. Dina then begins to walk over to the counter to grab a alcoholic beverage when she was stopped by a couple of girls her age.

"Hey look there is the firefly dad offspring." The blue eye girl growls.

"Excuse me?" Dina raised an eyebrow. She hated that people her age will have a go at her because her father left the town to join the fireflies.

"Your dad is going to end up leading the fireflies to us one day and have us killed." The brown hair girl joins in.

"My dad is trying to find a cure for this infected disease." Dina begins to stand up for herself. "If anything you guys should be thanking them.'

"The fireflies have gave people hope and left them dry, almost as dry as your split ends." the blue eye girl continues to harass Dina.

"Ha ha very funny." Dina said in a sarcastic tone, these girls would always choose the worst time to mess with her.

"It's funny how your dad would rather risk saving mankind than to be with you. I wouldn't blame him. Look at what you have become, dancing with every guy you see, trying to mark your territory on them like you're some sort of ravage animal." the brown hair girl snaps at Dina.

Normally things like this wouldn't bother Dina, she would normally shrug things like this off, but this one pulled her heart strings. Her father did leave her for the fireflies she began to remember the argument they had before he left. Dina turns the other way and storms out the dance crying.

Ellie noticed Dina crying as she sprinted out of the dance and followed her.

"Dina wait!" Ellie calls out to Dina trying to catch up with her.

Dina continues to run away until she felt like she was far enough from the dance. She was on the side of the building by the alley, it was dim there with one light that was barely beaming. Dina slides down the brick wall, has her face buried in her legs and she begins to sob loudly.

"What happened back there?" Ellie was almost out of breathe chasing Dina down. She decides to sit down next to Dina to comfort her.

"Ellie just leave me alone." Dina turns away from her still having her face buried in her legs.

"No, I'm not going to leave my friend out here in the cold during a party, now what happened?"

"Those girls again."

"What did they say now?" Ellie was tired of them picking on her as much as Dina was.

"They said that my dad left me for the Fireflies." She sniffles.

"You know that isn't true." Ellie shook her head, trying to cheer Dina up.

"But what if it was? We got into a argument before he left."

"Yeah you guys got into a argument for he left but that doesn't mean you were the cause of it. Hundreds of things could have been going through his mind at that moment. I'm pretty sure that he left for a good reason and when he comes back he will hopefully have a cure or even come by just to see you again."

Dina wipes the tears from her face, she stares at Ellie and smiles at her. She rushes in and gives Ellie a big hug, she was nearly squeezing her.

Ellie chuckles and hugs her back. This was probably one of the longest hugs Dina has ever given her. Of course Ellie never imagined it in between a building by an alley but at least she was spending time with Dina.

They were both interrupted when they heard their favorite song playing in the party.

Ellie gasps in excitement. "I love this song!" She gets up with Dina.

"C'mon let's dance together" Dina grabs Ellie's arm and begins to run towards the party.

Ellie laughs at how excited she was to dance to this song with her.

The two made their way towards the center of the dance floor, they were surrounded by people doing the salsa. Dina begins to do the Salsa so gracefully. Ellie was trying to mimic her movement but it was hard for Ellie to catch up.

"Gosh you're so good!" Ellie comments.

Dina grabs Ellie's hand and tries to teach her. "Try to catch up"

Ellie soon caught the hang of the dance. The crowd was cheering the girls on. Ellie and Dina laughs with each other. Ellie could not believe that she was dancing with Dina and not embarrassing herself for once and actually having a good time at the party.

Once the song was over the mood in the room changed as a slow dancing song begins to play. Dina wraps Ellie's arms around her waist and Dina puts her arms around Ellie's shoulders.

"You were really putting on a show. I didn't know that you had it in you." Dina chuckles, wiping the sweat from Ellie's forehead.

"Yeah me either you really bought it out in me."

"I have a question for you how bad do I smell?" Dina gives Ellie a tight hug, rubbing her sweat on Ellie's face.

"Like a hot - hot sweaty garbage" Ellie stutters, hugging Dina back.

"I don't smell too bad myself." Ellie rubs her sweat onto Dina.

"No you definitely smell worse than me." Dina chuckles.

Dina and Ellie begins to stare into each others eyes, enjoying the slow dance together.

"Hey Dina I know that this is a bit random, but I just want to thank you for being there for me, being my friend." Ellie was trying to think of something else to talk about. Ellie had the urge to kiss her she was trying to keep her eyes focused on her eyes instead of on her lips.

"No I should be the one to thank you." Dina moves Ellie's strand of hair out of her face.

"Well you did show me how to dance back there so that's how I will accept your thank you." Ellie grins.

Dina gives Ellie a cheeky grin. "You have done so much for me, you helped me understand who I am as a person, you saved my life multiple times, especially from my mom and you have cheered me up countless of times. There's so many things that you have did for me that. You're such a great person Ellie with an amazing personality, I'm glad I have you-" Dina's speech of gratitude for Ellie was interrupted when Ellie's lips pressed against hers.

Dina's eyes were wide open, she was quite surprised that Ellie went in for the kiss like that. Dina froze she did not know how to react. Ellie had her eyes closed, enjoying the sweet taste of her lips. Ellie quickly noticed that something was quite off, Dina was not kissing her back. Ellie opens her eyes and realized how Dina's eyes were big and full of shock.

Ellie quickly steps back "Oh um-" Ellie then proceeds to look up and noticed Jesse.

He saw that Ellie kissed Dina. Jesse's facial expression changed, he was quite upset, he turns around and disappears out of Ellie's sight. Ellie closes her eyes and runs out of the party. Tears were streaming down her face as she was running back home.

There were so many thoughts running through her head at that moment. She had just kissed her best friend's ex that she knew that he could have still had feelings for Dina. Dina did not kiss her back which made Ellie feel bad. Ellie thought that Dina could have had a crush on her, but it turns out that Dina just viewed her as a friend. She let all of this go to her head.

She arrives to her house and bangs on the door. Tommy rushes to the door and opens it.

Tommy notices the tears streaming down her face and how brokenhearted she was. "What's wrong, Ellie?" He voice raised concern.

Ellie didn't answer she pushes Tommy out the way and runs to her room.

"Ellie" Joel was approaching Tommy, watching her run up the stairs.

She slams the door loudly hoping that they would get the message.

"I'll go talk to her." Joel makes his way up the stairs and knocks on Ellie's door before he slowly comes in. "Ellie.." Joel says in a hush tone. He hates to see his baby girl upset.

It was sort of dark in Ellie's room the only light source that she had was the moonlight shinning into her room and the TV was on. Ellie was on her bed, laying on her stomach sobbing loudly into a pillow. Joel begins to feel bad that he sort of convinced her to go to the party.

He sits on the bed and rubs her back "What's wrong? Kids being mean to you again?"

There was no reply from Ellie. All Joel could hear was her whimpering.

"If you do not feel well by tomorrow I can try to see if I can reschedule you going out to patrol." Joel reassures.

Ellie whimpers even more before she speaks. "There's something wrong with me!"

"Oh Ellie, there is nothing wrong with you. Could you tell me what happened at the party?"

"It's too embarrassing I don't want to show my face for at least a week."

Joel understands what Ellie is going through right now he used to be a teenager himself, he just wishes that she would tell him so he could give Ellie the best advice that he could give her.

There were the sound of footsteps walking inside Ellie's room. Joel notices the sound and turns his attention to the door. He thought it was Tommy at first but then he saw Dina.

"What happened?" Joel waits for Dina to reply.

Ellie thought Joel was talking to her again so she ignores him.

"It is okay that I talk with Ellie in private?"

Ellie was startled to hear Dina in her room. She quickly bounce up, wiping her tears.

Joel get up from Ellie's bed "Sure" He processes to leave the room and closes the door on the way out.

Dina sits down next to Ellie.

"You came after me?" Ellie was quite surprised that Dina came.

" Yeah why wouldn't I?"

"Listen Dina about back there-" Ellie begins to apologize when she was interrupted by Dina leaning in and kissing her.

Ellie's eyes shot wide open, her heart began to pound uncontrollably. Ellie closes her eyes and kisses her back. The two began to french kiss, Dina was caressing Ellie's face with one of her hands. Ellie grabs Dina's other hand and held it. Ellie begins to breathe heavy, getting turned on by Dina's passionate, wet kisses. Ellie wanted to remove her clothes, but she feared that she was going too fast and that Joel could come in.. Joel could come in! She quickly stop kissing Dina

"Is everything okay?" Dina was wondering why she tugged away so fast.

Ellie begins to wonder how she was going to tell Joel that she was gay? Does this mean that her and Dina are dating now?

"The way you responded when I kissed you at the party." Ellie voice sound a little bit sad.

"I was just shocked. I was not expecting you to do that, I didn't even know you liked me and I didn't know how to react, I just froze. When I saw tears running down your face and you storming off like that I had to come after you." Dina wanted to clear the air as much as possible.

"Are you and Jesse going to get back together?" Ellie wondered if she still had feelings for Jesse since their relationship was on and off.

"Not a chance! I'm done with him this time."

"We should get some rest. We have to patrol tomorrow." Ellie begins to stretch, cutting their conversation short.

"Yeah I guess I better leave then, goodnight." Dina gets off of Ellie's bed and begins to approach her door. She was quite hesitant to grab the door knob at first. "Was there anything else bothering you, Ellie, or were you just afraid that I didn't like you back?"

Like her? Dina likes her back. Ellie begins to blush" No, no, that was the only thing, goodnight Dina" Ellie smiles.

Dina waves at her before leaving. Ellie fell back into her pillow with butterflies swarming around her stomach. She ended up falling asleep with one problem less to worry about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to upload this chapter on Monday, but why not give it to you guys early. I really enjoyed writing this chapter and I hope you guys will enjoy reading it. Chapter 4 is coming soon. I might write chapter 4 after I finish playing Part 2 so that I can have more ideas


	4. Not Like This

Ellie wakes up early in the morning to get ready for school before she has to go out and patrol. Ellie gets dressed and walks down the stairs with ease. She was greeted by the smell of pancakes and bacon hitting her nose. She sits down with Joel, Tommy and Maria and begins to dig into the pancakes and bacon that was right in front of her.

"Good Morning, Ellie." Maria greets Ellie with a warm smile.

"Are you feeling better, Ellie?" Tommy was still concerned about what happened last night.

"A lot better actually"Ellie lies, she was still thinking about coming out of the closet and she had to mentally prepare herself when she sees Jesse today.

"Well I am glad you're feeling better baby girl." Joel was relieved that Dina was able to talk it out with Ellie "Dina is a good friend"

Ellie coughs on her food a bit. "Yeah she is, she's amazing, she's-" Ellie had to catch herself she didn't want to ramble about Dina too much.

"She's what." Maria was waiting for Ellie to continue, Maria thought that Ellie was going to tell a story about her friend.

"She's..." Ellie thought of a quick excuse to cover up her crush she has on Dina. "She's waiting for me at school! I should go soon." Ellie begins to stuff her face.

"Alright Ellie, well remember what I told you about patrolling. Stay safe." Joel was a bit worried about Ellie going out. He wish that there was a way that she wouldn't have to go out all together, but he knew that he couldn't protect her forever. The two have went against things that were far worse than patrolling so he has to remind himself that Ellie will be fine.

"I'll be fine, Joel I promise." Ellie grabs her backpack, goes over to Joel kisses him on the cheek before she heads out.

"Gosh she's growing up so fast! I can't believe this will be the last year of her being a teenager" Maria sips on her water. "I remember when Joel had to clear out the infected and he would have me watch Ellie."

"I still can't believe she's all grown up." Tommy chuckles. 

The three of them continued to talk about their fondest memories with Ellie.

Meanwhile Ellie made it to school, She walks into the college lecture halls with graffiti on it. They had assign seats. Ellie had to seat right next to Jesse. Jesse was already sitting down staring at the big white board, waiting on the teacher to start class. Ellie couldn't even imagine what was going on in Jesse's head. Did he even want to be friends after that? She knew that they would have to talk soon since they were going to be patrolling, but now wouldn't be a good time.

"Good morning class" Ms.Gloria greets as she enters the classroom and stands in front of her desk.

"Good morning." the class replies, they seemed very tired and out of it.

"I said good morning." She greets again wanting them to be more awake.

"Good morning." The class said in a louder tone.

"Today since you guys will be patrolling I won't teach you guys today, I just want you guys to spend time reviewing over your notes with patrolling, talk to your partner and other patrol related things."

Ellie sighs to herself she already knew how the patrols went but since Jesse was her partner that means they would have to talk sooner rather than later. 

"We might as well review our routes we're suppose to take before patrolling." Ellie tries to start off a conversation.

Jesse shrugs. "We study our routes plenty of times before I think we're good."

Ellie could tell that he was not trying to engage in a conversation with her. She still wasn't in the best of moods to talk to him and him not trying to engage either made things worse for the both of them.

"I'm going to go to the restroom." Ellie lies, getting up from her chair leaving the classroom.

As she we left the classroom walking around the hallway, she spots Dina getting something out of her locker, but she also saw one of the girls from the party that made her cry. Ellie decides to head over to Dina.

"Gosh did a clicker bite you in your ass. You're just as bad as bothering me for no reason!" Dina slammed her locker in anger, glaring at the girl.

"Gosh isn't that your dad's job-" the brown hair girl was going to make an remark but was interrupted by Dina.

"Aubrey stop putting my dad in this!" Dina points her finger in Aubrey's face.

"What's going on?" Ellie was a little out of breath jogging over to them.

"This bitch can't take a hint!" Dina snaps.

Ellie was quite surprised that Dina cursed out of anger. She was not the type to curse because of her anger. "Look I don't know what your problem is with Dina, but you need to stop it now."

" Oh and what are you going to do about it?" Aubrey teases Ellie, getting face to face with her.

Ellie punches Aubrey in the face and the girls began to brawl out on each other. They were banging each other against the lockers and rolling on the floor.

"Ellie!" Dina was concerned about her. Dina wasn't the fighting type unless her life was in danger. She decides to run and get help. "You beat her ass, Ellie!" Dina hollered before turning the corner. 

Soon help arrived and they were able to separate the girls. Jesse was walking down the stairs and saw that Ellie was pulled off of Aubrey. 

Jesse decides to approach Ellie. "What happened?"

"That asshole kept messing with Dina, I had to do something." Ellie covers her nose.

"Oh no, Ellie, are you hurt?" Dina rushes over and tries to carefully examine Ellie's nose.

Ellie couldn't help but to chuckle, she found it quite cute that Dina was trying to caress her face again. Ellie keeps Dina from grabbing her face. "I'm fine." Ellie then remembers that Jesse was right there watching them.

Fortunately for Ellie she didn't have to deal with the awkwardness for too long.

"Ellie come with me." One of the teachers said. "You'll stay in my office until your guardian comes to get you before patrol."

Ellie had a disappointed look on her face. "Please don't tell Joel about this!"

"Yeah it's not fair! Aubrey started it!" Dina was trying to stand up for Ellie.

"Let's go, Ellie, and you two should get back to class." the teacher orders.

"I'll see you two later." Ellie waves with disappointment in her voice before she follows behind the teacher.

Dina had a sad expression on her face, holding her hands being a little nervous for Ellie. Dina and Jesse were watching Ellie walk off. "I'm so sorry, Ellie." Dina whispers to herself.

Jesse overheard Dina whispering to herself. "Ugh you are acting like it's the end of the world. You will see her in a couple of hours." Jesse turns around and begins to walk towards his class.

Dina decides to follow Jesse to keep her company for a little bit. " No if I didn't skip class and if I knew how to stick up for myself then this would of never happened." 

"You're overthinking this, Dina it will be fine. You should get to class." Jesse replies, walking slightly faster than Dina so he could head back to class.

Dina stops following him and pauses in the middle of the hallway, watching him walk off. Dina found that a bit odd, normally in situations like this he would try to help Dina and he wouldn't be so quick to brush things off like that. Dina thought that it was just him being a little nervous to patrol again and decides to brush it off. Dina also decides to go to her class.

Meanwhile Ellie was sitting down inside a teacher's office waiting for Joel to come by. Although Ellie did get into a fight and there was a bruise on her nose she didn't think into it that much, she was fantasizing about Dina and she was a bit worried about patrolling today with Jesse. There was a sudden knock on the door followed by the creeping of the door opening. It was Joel he looks over at Ellie and the first thing that he notices was the bruise on her nose.

"Ellie what happened?" Joel sits next to Ellie and touches her face.

Ellie nudges Joel's hand off of his face, not making contact with him. "I'm fine."

"She got into a fight. I had to separate the girls."

"Ellie you better tell me how this happened." Joel said in a stern voice.

Ellie knew by the tone of his voice that he was serious " This one chick kept picking on Dina so I hit her." 

Joel sighs. "How long will she have to be out of school for?"

"After she finish patrol then she can come back the next day but she will probably have to clean around the school for punishment."

Ellie rolls her eyes and crosses her arms in annoyance.

"Thank you, Mr. Palm, C'mon Ellie." Joel stands up from his chair, getting ready to leave the school.

Ellie follows behind Joel.

The two of them left the school side by side, it was still morning. The sunlight was shinning brightly and it was quite warm outside. Ellie knew that Joel was upset with her so she decides the break the silence. 

"I'm sorry, Joel it's just that I was getting tired of that girl picking on Dina" Ellie starts.

"I know, Dina has had a problem with those girls for a while, but she has to learn to find her own battles you can't always be there to protect her." Joel mentions looking down at Ellie, he was mainly paying attention to her nose. "Did you win the fight?"

"I beat the shit out of her" Ellie looks up at Joel and smirks.

"That's my girl." Joel chuckles.

"So what now?" Ellie wanted to get her mind off of the fight.

"Well we can always head back to the house." 

Ellie shrugs her shoulders " What are we going to do there?"

"We have board games, and movies that me, you, Tommy and Maria can enjoy." Joel brought up.

Although Ellie did like that idea she wanted to do something different and she wanted to hang out with Joel. " I was thinking that we could hang out with each other instead until it's time for me to patrol."

Joel was so delighted to hear those words come out of her mouth. They haven't did that in ages " I am definitely down for that" Joel nods. "Where to?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First I want to say that this was so unexpected of me. I was not expecting to write another chapter this soon but my creative urges kicked into me this late at night and I just had too. Thank you guys for the love and support so far. Chapter 5 my be coming sooner than what you think. In the meantime endure and survive this pandemic.


	5. Short Lived

Just a walk is what Ellie wanted to do with Joel. It wasn't the most exciting thing that they have done together but it was a pretty day outside and walking helped clear their mind. Ellie needed a walk more than anything right now with all the stuff that has happened yesterday and today. 

" You know me and Sarah used to take walks like this." Joel starts up a conversation. There were times that Joel would bring Sarah up and Ellie would be there to listen and be his shoulder to cry on. 

"What would you two talk about?" Ellie was listening as she felt the cool breeze brush against her face.

"Movies, boys, school, travel and a whole lot of other things." Joel said. "So Ellie." He decides to drift the conversation away from Sarah as he felt his voice wanting to wobble. " Is there a place that you've always wanted to go too?"

"Well I always wanted to go to the beach. All the sand, pretty waters and creatures. I daydream about the beach quite frequently." Ellie could feel her emotions of the beach rising up from within her. She begins to smile. 

"Well Ellie I have been to the beach before." Joel couldn't wait to tell her the story.

"No way!" Ellie gasps with her eyes twinkling at Joel. "You have to tell me what happened!"

"Tommy and I went to a beach in California when we were teenagers. The tides there were big, the sand was moist, there would be creatures like the crab and starfish coming up from the waters. I remember when I tried to grab one and it pinched the living hell out of me." Joel could feel the waves of emotions coming upon him remembering the good times.

Ellie chuckles. "Did y'all ever surf?"

"Did we ever surf?" Joel was surprised that she asked that question. "That was the best thing of our trip! Although Tommy was a better surfer than me. I would fall down countless of times. One time while we were surfing we ran into a dolphin."

"That's pretty cool" Ellie nods. "What else did you guys do as teenagers?"

Joel then went into details about his hobbies, the girls he dated, how high school was like, his parents. Ellie was glad that Joel was telling her his stories, but she begins to get upset about how she will never experience what her old man did.

"Too bad that I won't ever get to experience things like that." Ellie seemed bummed out. She sits by an wooden bench nearby the ranch. 

Joel joins her and notices the expression on her face. "I know you wish things were different, Ellie, I wish things were different"

"At least I have a good life here living in Jackson" Ellie didn't feel too bad about not experiencing things that teenagers before did. She made friends, she watched movies, she learned how to play guitar and other stuff that she did. 

Joel and Ellie relaxes on the wooden bench watching the clouds go by peacefully. 

"You know this isn't half bad" Ellie replies enjoying the cool breeze on her skin. "Maybe we could go to that bar and play Darts before I have to go."

Joel nods. "Yeah kiddo you only have a few more hours until it's time for you to go." 

The two went to the bar and they played Darts together to pass up the time. Joel was quite surprised that Ellie was getting better in Darts. 

"I see you have a trick or two up your sleeve" Joel comments on her skills.

"Yeah you weren't expecting that." Ellie throws a dart that almost hit the middle of the target. She ends up passing Joel's score.

"And you weren't expecting this either" Joel hits a perfect shot in the middle of the target and passed up Ellie's score. He cheers.

"You got lucky." Ellie crosses her arms not wanting to admit her defeat. 

There was a sudden horn that was blowing across town to let people know that it was time to patrol. 

"Well there's my que" Ellie sighs, rolling her eyes a bit. She knew that she had to suck it up and try to deal with Jesse. Ellie begins to head towards the front gate and Joel follows behind her. 

"Now Ellie do you remember your routes that you need to take?" Joel begins to get nervous about her patrolling again.

"Yes I do"

"You have your logbook with you?" He proceeds to ask her.

"Done and done"

"What about-" Joel was going to ask her even more questions but Ellie stopped him.

"Joel I'm going to be fine. I will come back, I did this before remember." Ellie reassures Joel.

Joel gives a slight smile. "You're right"

Ellie waves at Joel as she approaches the gate with the other people that are suppose to patrol. Joel stood there with his arms crossed and watched. 

Ellie carefully climbs on the brown horse, she was a bit anxious herself but she tried to shake it off. Dina was also on her horse and she approaches Ellie on the right side of the horse and gives off a warm, vibrant smile. Ellie smiles back at Dina. One of the guys that were patrolling gave them hunting rifles and a pistol. Ellie was making sure that everything was reloaded and ready to go. Jesse was also on his horse, but he comes in between Ellie and Dina. Ellie knew by Jesse behavior that he was still mad at her and maybe even jealous. Ellie looks at their leader getting ready to speak.

"Alright you all know the drill, run your routes, log your logbooks, if you run anything you can't handle you come back." The leader told them in a firm voice.

There wasn't much to say at that point. The gates began to open and one by one the patrollers heads out the gate. 

"Stay safe kiddo." Joel whispers to himself watching as Ellie leaves.

"I don't know what happened I was supposed to take her to the fireflies and walk away. They were actually going to make a cure, the only catch, it would kill her." Joel was at his house sitting with Maria and Tommy at the kitchen table explaining to them what happened. Sometimes he still wonders if he did the right thing for Ellie's sake. After all Ellie did want to help find the cure and she was willing to do what she can and after all these years Joel felt selfish for not telling her the truth but it was for his sake of peace.

"I think you did the right thing brother, even if we did have a vaccine it wouldn't stop people from getting outrun by clickers and being torn to pieces and how would everyone be able to get a dose of the vaccine. There would be so many outcomes to finding a vaccine." Tommy informs Joel.

"Did you ever tell Ellie the truth?" Maria could tell that Joel was really concerned.

"No I didn't. I don't want to hurt her. She can't know, this has to stay between us." 

"It will stay between the three of us." Maria reassures. "You will have to tell her eventually though"

"Yeah when she is older." Joel still felt like she was still too young and was not ready for the truth. If he told her the truth it could effect their whole relationship with one another and he didn't want that. "I hope that she stays safe and out of trouble, but I trust Jesse, he's a strong guy and a good ally." 

"Well it's good to know she's with someone you can trust. C'mon Joel it's almost 3:00pm we need to get ready to pick up the vegetables in the fields." Tommy gets up and puts on his jacket.

"Yeah and Ellie will be home soon. Maria do you mind staying here until Ellie comes home." Joel was hoping that Maria would say yes.

"Yes Joel that is not a problem." Maria answers.

"Thank you" Joel smiles heading out of his house with his brother. 


	6. The Calm Before The Storm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IMPORTANT   
> Please read before continuing the chapter.
> 
> Hey guys I just want to thank you all for coming this far to my first Last of Us fanfiction. I truly appreciate the love and support, but I do want to let you all know that from this point on my story might contain spoilers from The Last of Us part 2 so if you haven't played the game or don't want to get spoiled make sure you finish watching the cutscenes or finish playing the game first. Without further ado let's continue on with the story.

It has been three hours since Ellie and Jesse have been patrolling together. They would write in their logbooks about certain landmarks that they have found, how much food they have found by that landmark. They have been taking out the infected and making sure that their hasn't been any trespassers, but there was still not a lot of communication between the two. They sat at a log bench to take a short break from patrolling. Jesse was on one side of the log bench while Ellie was on the other side. The silence was driving Ellie crazy.

"Okay I've had enough of this!" Ellie blurts. "I'm sorry that I kissed Dina. I was not expecting it."

Jesse turns to Ellie. "You were not expecting it! You went in for the kiss, if anyone didn't expect it, it's Dina and I" Jesse snaps, he was getting even more heated. "You're only apologizing because you don't want to deal with the consequences of your actions."

"Consequences of my actions?" Ellie stands up to her feet flustered "Maybe if you were a better boyfriend to Dina maybe you two would still be together!" 

"Oh please you don't know her like you think you do. All that glitter is not gold!" 

"Ugh I don't have time for this." Ellie marches to her horse, climbs on the horse and storms off.

Jesse stands up and watches Ellie disappear. "Always running off from your problems right!" Jesse yells at Ellie. Jesse then plummets back on the log bench to calm down.

Ten minutes have passed and Jesse finally snaps out of being angry with Ellie. "Wait what am I doing!" Jesse says to himself as he rushes to his horse. "I gotta find Ellie!" Jesse gestures his horse to run. He hopes that Ellie didn't go too far and was not in trouble. 

Meanwhile Ellie was already in trouble she was already trying to sneak away from the infected inside of a abandoned court house, it was the infected that she hated the most, Stalkers. This infected would run away and would wait to attack. She was doing good so far sneaking away from the infected and then she tried to sneak pass one of the stalkers that was looking out the window and she accidently stepped on glass which alerted her position. The stalker turned in her direction and ran towards her. Ellie gets up and run while she uses her pistol to shoot at the Stalker that was trying so diligently to catch up with her. 

She finally headshots the stalker and the stalker falls back and slams onto the floor, dying. Two more stalkers run out in front of her and plummets her onto the floor. Ellie drops her weapon and she was trying so hard to grab it while keeping the stalkers from biting her. Although she was immune to the cordyceps virus it would look bad if Jesse or someone else saw a bite mark on her. She could feel her hands sweating as she felt the pistol within her grasp. She was finally able to grab the gun and she splattered one of the stalkers face into bits. The other stalker grabbed her by the foot and began to drag her across the court house. 

This was very odd to Ellie. This has never happened to her before. This stalker was just dragging her around without attacking her. She was trying to aim her gun to shoot the stalker arm off but since it was running so fast while swaying her side to side it was hard for her to shoot. The Stalker finally stopped dragging her and then pounced on top of her, scratching her. She shot the Stalker in the chest a few times before it fell over to the side. Ellie tosses the body to the side and stands up dusting the fungi off of her. She had a few scratch marks on her, but she was not bitten.

"What the hell was that all about?" Ellie was out of breath and she was very puzzled about what just happened. She begins to look for a way out of the court house while she was searching for supplies. 

Then Ellie froze when she heard a noise that she never heard of. She hid underneath a desk and she saw an infected that she never seen before. It had puss spores all over its body with an overgrown head. She was very frighten, her whole body began to tremble as she felt a cool breeze go down her spine. She tries to carefully move from under the desk but she ends up accidently bumping her head and the Shambler came into the room she was. The Shambler burst acid towards Ellie and she began to sprint away from the hideous infected. 

Some of the acid landed on Ellie's skin causing her to scream. She slides over the table and shoots at the Shambler. The Shambler continued to burst acid towards her. She shot the Shambler a few times in the head and in the legs before it fell down and exploded the acid everyone. Ellie took a huge breath of relieve before she used a brick to break the window and escape. She had to be extra careful now that she is out of bullets. Since she had lost her horse due to the infected scaring it off she hoped that she would find the horse again and she hoped that the infected didn't catch up and eat him.

Meanwhile Jesse was riding on his horse still searching for Ellie. He thought that Ellie couldn't have headed far since he wasn't sitting down for long before he decided to look for her. It was only one thing it was starting to get late and they needed to get back home soon or they would have the town worried. He was in a hurry to try and find Ellie. He would search building after building to make sure that she wasn't in there, killing infected in the process. Soon Jesse had ran into the horse that Ellie was riding. Jesse gets off of his horse and carefully pets Ellie's horse to calm it. Jesse grabs Ellie's horse and walks with it. 

"Okay so Ellie's not too far from here." Jesse was relieved to see the horse." But where would she be?" 

Jesse hears a scream that was right behind him and it was Ellie running away from a Shambler. Jesse gasp at the Shambler, he has also never seen anything like this. 

"Ellie over here" Jesse yells at the top of his lungs, shooting at the Shambler. 

It begins to get worse when Shambler after Shambler showed up trying to kill them. One of the Shamblers begins to catch up with Ellie and burst the acid towards her. Jesse hops on his horse and runs towards Ellie grabbing her. Jesse then stops his horse for Ellie to hop on hers. The both of them heads away from the infected. 

A couple of hours later Ellie and Jesse decided to settle in an abandoned theater. They set their horses aside in the theater. It was now a couple of hours until night and the two had no clue where they were. 

It was still awkward silence between the two and it was build up tension that needed to be resolved. Jesse decides to wander around the theater. Walking around the theater helped clear his mind. On the other hand, Ellie had found a guitar and she began to play it. Ellie was sitting comfortably in the red chair, leaned back, stroking the strings gently. She then gets a flashback of herself at Dina's 17th birthday. Dina and Jesse were still together at the time, the three of the were the ultimate trio. Ellie remembers that they like it was yesterday she had a blast. She begins to ponder in her happy thoughts some more as it calms her.

Meanwhile back at Jackson it has been two hours since mostly everyone has returned from the patrol except for Ellie and Jesse. Dina notices that there was something wrong when she saw a group of people at the gate discussing something. She decides to approach them and ask some questions.

"Hey what's going on?" Dina had fret in her voice.

"Were looking for two patrollers named Ellie and Jesse have you seen them?" One of the gate patrollers was waiting for an answer.

Dina opens her mouth to answer but another guy was speedy quick to answer.

"No" a guy replies. "They have been gone longer than usual we might need to send out a search party"

Dina begin to panic. She decides to rush to Jesse's house to tell them what's going on and then she rushes to Joel's house. Dina bangs on Joel's door waiting for him to open.

It was Maria that opened the door instead. "Hello Dina, have you seen Ellie?" 

"No!" Dina shouts. "Her and Jesse went out to patrol and they haven't came back!"

"What!" Joel shouts, he had just approached Dina from behind and heard everything. 

Tommy heard his brother shout and he had a concerned expression on his face. "What's going on?"

"C'mon Tommy, Ellie is missing." Joel begins to head to the gate. There were so many things running through his mind right now. He was so concerned that Ellie could be in danger at this very moment and he wouldn't even know or be able to do anything. His main concern was to find her.

"I knew that she wasn't ready for this." Joel begins to feel regretful and sorrow.

"Joel don't worry we will find her." Tommy tries to calm his brother. He could tell how stress he was getting.

Joel, Tommy, Maria and Dina soon were at the gate. 

"John go ahead and set up a search party. Joel and Tommy will be apart of this party" Maria orders.

"What about me." Dina wanted to look for Ellie as much as Joel did.

"No, Dina you need to stay here. We have everything under control." Maria assures. 

"What that's not fair. The more people we have out the better chance we have of finding them." Dina was getting upset that Maria wouldn't let her go. 

"Dina." Maria said in a serious tone.

Dina knew by Maria's tone of voice that she was serious and that she meant business. "I really hope you find them." Dina says in a sad tone, she then turns around and begins to head home.

Jesse's dad showed up and was also getting ready to look for his son. The men were getting their horses and guns prepared for the trip.

"Maria can I talk to you in private?" Joel hops off of his horse.

"Of course." Maria nods, walking a little bit further away from the men.

"Once we find Ellie I want her pulled off of the patrol list she is not ready for this." Joel was very upset about what was happening and he was trying to hide the pain in his voice.

"Well I just can't get her off the list. There are people above me when it comes to who patrols-" Maria was trying to explain, but Joel interrupts her.

"Well talk to whoever is in charge to get her off the list before I do. If I have to talk to them it's not going to be nice." Joel warns Maria.

"Joel!" Tommy calls him over. "They are about to open up the gate."

Joel goes over to his horse and reloads his gun before they open up the gate and send the search party out. They then begin the search to find the two. 

A few hours later Jesse decides to approach Ellie who was still playing the guitar and was in deep thought. He gently taps her on the shoulder. "Is it okay if I sit next to you?"

Ellie gives off a soft smile. "Sure."

"Also you don't mind if I play the guitar do you?" Jesse hands his arms open, wanting Ellie to give him the guitar.

Ellie hugs the guitar away from him jokily. "No way, you play guitar!"

"And sing" Jesse adds. 

"Well don't keep me waiting." Ellie was excited to hear him sing and play the guitar. 

Jesse begins to sing his favorite country song while playing the guitar. Ellie was very surprised about how good he sounds and she could tell how much he had passion for singing.

Jesse finishes up his song and gives the guitar to Ellie. "Your turn"

Ellie chooses a song to sing as well, her song choice was more romantic. Jesse watches as Ellie strokes the strings on the guitar and listen to the sweet melody. 

"You have a beautiful voice." Jesse smiles at Ellie.

"Thank you." Ellie nods. "You're pretty good at singing yourself. How come you never come to karaoke night?" 

Jesse shrugs "Eh I guess it's the nerves. I actually never sang in front of people."

"Don't let the nerves get to ya. You'll do great." Ellie shoulder buds Jesse.

"Ellie.." Jesse begins to change the topic. He felt like he should get this off his chest sooner rather than later. "I'm sorry about how I acted earlier. You're right if I would of been a better boyfriend to her then we would have still been together. I don't want our friendship to break." he felt his guilt exploding.

Ellie felt relieved when he apologized and that the tension between them were going away. "Apology accepted."

Jesse stands up. "It's late we should get some rest. Tomorrow we will continue our search back home."

"Goodnight Jesse." Ellie gets up and sleeps on the brown couch nearby.

"Night." Jesse goes to next room and falls asleep on a red couch. 

In the middle of the night Ellie was awoken by a strange noise she heard outside. She wakes up Jesse. 

"What is it." Jesse rubs his eyes he was still tired.

"Jesse get up. It might be infected." Ellie tugs on his arm.

"Alright, Alright." Jesse gets up a bit annoyed that Ellie woke up him. They both head towards the front of the theatre and presses their ear against the door to hear better.

There was a clear call. "Ellie."

Ellie recognized that voice from anywhere. "Joel!" Her heart was filled with glee.

"Oh thank goodness." Jesse took a breath of relieve.

Ellie rushes to get the door open. Once the door opened she spotted Joel and Tommy on their horses. "Joel!"

Joel and Tommy looks over at the theater and sees Ellie coming out and Jesse was right behind her bringing out the horses. 

Joel's eyes widen when he saw Ellie, rushes over to her on his horse. He stops his horse, leaps off and gives her a tight, warm hug. "Oh baby girl, are you alright?" 

"I'm fine, Joel. We just got a little lost." Ellie wanted Joel to stop hugging her so she pats him on the back. 

"I was so worried about you." Joel continues to hug her.

Jesse hops on his horse. "You guys won't believe what me and Ellie ran into."

Joel finally stops hugging Ellie and he was quite curious on what he had to say.

"What is it?" Tommy was waiting for Jesse to answer. 

"There was this infected that has puss spores and burst acid towards you." Jesse explains, he still couldn't believe what he saw.

"Oh yeah this stalker grabbed me by the foot and dragged me around without trying to attack me until a couple minutes passed. Now that was weird." Ellie said, shaking her head.

"Wait a second a stalker grabbed you, didn't even attack you and there's a infected that burst acid." Tommy could not believe what he was hearing.

"Sounds like to me the infected are mutating." Joel mentions as he hops on his horse. "We should get home and tell the others."

Ellie hops on her horse as well and the four of them heads home.

When they arrived home they were greeted by Maria and Dina. Once Ellie and Jesse gets off of their horse Dina rushes in and gives both of them a hug.

"I'm so glad that you two are okay." Dina was more than relieve that they were okay. 

"Yeah were doing fine." Jesse smiles, he happens to turn around and spots his father and the other men from the search party coming into the gate. "Hey I will catch up with you guys tomorrow." 

"See ya." Dina waves at Jesse.

"Actually Dina I'm going to go home. I had a tired day. I have so much to tell you later." Ellie gives Dina a tight hug before she heads home with Joel. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another day, another chapter written. Thank you guys so much finishing another chapter to this story. There is something crazy that is going to happen next chapter and I cannot wait for you guys to read the next chapter. Until then keep enduring and surviving. 


	7. This Feeling

It was an bright, magnificent morning. Dina had just woken up and she was so eager to come and see Dina. She was so worried about her yesterday and now that Ellie is back home and safe she wanted to see how she was doing. Dina arrives at Joel's door and was hesitant to knock. It was a bit early for Joel or Ellie to be awake at this time, but Dina couldn't help herself. She bash the door hardly with her fist hoping that one of them could hear the knocks. 

Ellie was snoring in her bed she was actually having a nightmare about the infected. A stalker grabs her by the foot and drags her into the Shamblers. The Shamblers ended up bursting acid at her she couldn't breathe and her face was burning, fortunately for Ellie she heard the knocking on the door and she gasp waking up from her nightmare. She gets up and rubs her head before she heard another round of knocks.

"I'm coming!" Ellie was still a bit exhausted and she was wondering who could that be so early in the morning, but she was glad the knocking woke her up from that terrible nightmare. 

She heads downstairs and opens the door it was Dina smiling at Ellie.

"Why good morning sleepy head." Dina chuckles.

"You and Jesse wake up so early why?" Ellie grumbles

"Have you not heard the saying the early bird gets the worm." Dina teased.

"Oh I heard of it, but that doesn't mean you go and wake other people up."

"Ellie stop being such a mood killer. Get dressed were hanging out." Dina smiles as she closes the door to Joel's house.

"What the-" Ellie chuckles, sometimes she couldn't understand Dina, but she got dressed and left Joel a note before she heads out with Dina. 

"Alright Dina where to?" Ellie closes the door to her house. 

"Well I wanted to go to Jim's Pancake Shop to eat there with Jesse and then we can go hang out just the two of us." Dina smiles at Ellie trying to hold her hand.

Ellie gets a bit nervous because no one knows that her and Dina have feelings for each other except for Jesse. She decides to pretend to scratch her back instead. "Yeah Dina I look forward to that."

The two of them enter a bar like restaurant the smell of pancakes and warm syrup hits their nose. The girls love the smell of the pancakes. The girls spots Jesse and sits with him.

"Why hello there." Jesse greets them while he sips on some beer he was actually quite surprised to see Ellie up so early "What are you doing up so early?"

"Dina." Ellie answers.

"Ah." Jesse replies. "Oh and Dina I forgot to tell you what me and Ellie ran into yesterday. It was a mutated infected it had puss spores, an overgrown head and it burst acid."

"The fuck. No way!"

"And a stalker grabbed my foot and dragged me on the floor for about two minutes before it attacked me." Ellie adds.

"Oh my. I'm glad I wasn't on that side of town but now I know what to look out for next when we go patrolling a couple weeks from now." 

Ellie and Dina begins to order breakfast. Ellie ordered chocolate pancakes with bacon and root beer while Dina ordered vanilla pancakes with eggs and water. 

"Ellie I don't understand why you drink so much root beer." Jesse chuckles "Just drink actually beer"

"I drank beer once. My taste buds died. I'm not drinking beer again." Ellie told.

"I have to agree on Ellie with this one. Beer is disgusting, I'd rather drink Champagne."

Jesse scoffs. "Amateurs" 

There was a sudden unexpected event that happens. Jesse's parents show up and they join Jesse's table. Jesse begins to feel a bit uncomfortable he was not expecting his parents to show up. Ellie and Dina also began to feel very awkward. 

"Hey Mom and Dad I wasn't expecting to see you guys here." Jesse begins to chew on his pancakes. 

"You know I had to see what you were up to." His mom grabs his chew and pinches it.

"Mom I just left the house." Jesse looks over at his mom.

Ellie couldn't help but to chuckle.

"Oh where's our manners. Hello Dina and Ellie." his parents greets

"Hello" Ellie and Dina greets back.

The waiter came to their table to serve both Dina and Ellie breakfast.

"Thank you." Dina smiles at the waiter.

The five of them began to talk amongst each other enjoying each other company. Jesse's parents were embarrassing Jesse by talking about what he did as a kid. Dina was talking about her teen years and Ellie was talking about her relationship with Joel. 

"Are you guys going to order something?" Jesse finishes up his beer.

"No your mother and I already ate at home." Robin said.

"We just come here because we love how pretty it is in here." His mom Ruby adds.

"What do you guys have planned for today?" Jesse finishes up his food and pushes his plate to the side.

"Well me and Ellie are going to go hang out at the video game store and probably the bar."

"Can I tag along." Jesse was sort of bored and he wanted to have some fun since he has been stressed recently. He also wanted to use that time to make up with Ellie.

Ruby buds herself into the conversation. "Oh Jesse let your girlfriend have some girl time with her friend."

It was awkward silence between the three. Dina had already told her mom that they have broke up, Jesse hasn't told his parents yet and Ellie was right in the middle of this mess. Ellie wasn't sure if she should say something or not so she stares down at her plate and finishes up her breakfast.

"Yeah um you girls have fun." Jesse didn't want to make the situation more awkward. 

"I'm going to head to the restroom before we head out." Ellie leaves the table.

She enters the restroom and begins to pace back and forth "Jesse didn't even tell his parents that they broke up? This is so awkward!"

There was a lady in the restroom that overheard Ellie. She came out of the stall to wash her hands.

"It sounds like you're having boy problems." The lady spoke.

"Sort of." Ellie growls.

"Sounds like to me he didn't want to tell his parents because it would be sad for them or he might still have feelings for her. I sure hope that things turn out for the best." The lady begins to walk out of the restroom.

"Thank you." Ellie sighs, heading out the restroom as well.

Jesse's parents had already left the table and decided to go take a walk. Jesse and Dina were at the table quietly arguing.

"You didn't tell your parents that we broke up! We broke up almost a month ago!" Dina was glaring at Jesse.

"I didn't know how to tell them." Jesse whispers harshly.

"You didn't hesitate the other ten times to tell them about why we broke up. Why are you hesitate now. Oh I know what this is about, this is about Ellie. You're jealous!" Dina snaps.

"I'm not jealous about Ellie!" Jesse snaps, bringing attention to both of them.

The people around them stares at Jesse for yelling and Ellie walks up on Dina and Jesse.

"What did you say about me?" Ellie quietly approaches the table, fiddling her fingers and looking at Jesse waiting for a reply.

Dina gives Jesse a dirty look before she gets up from the table. "C'mon Ellie were leaving." Dina grabs Ellie by the shoulder and walks out with her. 

"What was that about?" Ellie wanted to know what was going on she hated secrets especially if it involved her.

"Just a bit of a argument that's all no need to be concerned. We should go to the arcade, I'm going to beat you in Starlight this time." Dina was determined to finish off what Ellie started.

Ellie laughs. "Dina you're no match for me in that game."

"Let your thumbs do all of the talking instead of that little mouth of yours." Dina chuckles.

The two of the heads inside the arcade it was filled with games, a couple of flat screen TVS that were playing movies, and food such as Pizza and cake. They had a section for kids and young adults. Ellie and Dina heads to the adult arcade and sits right next to each other at the Starlight game. Ellie and Dina both smile at each other. 

"You're going to get toast!" Ellie begins to play. 

Dina was taking notes and watching how Ellie strategize her movements in the game. When it was Dina's turn to play she was using a few of Ellie's movements as well as some of her own.

"Ah I see that you have been trying to learn from the master." Ellie chuckles.

Dina didn't reply to Ellie's comment. She was trying to keep her eye on the prize. After a few hard moments of the game Dina won by a few points.

"Ugh no way! You got lucky!" Ellie was in denial that she lost.

"You want to play again? Best of three?"

"Nah, I'm good." Ellie gets up.

"You're good? The girl who always play this game now doesn't want to! Don't chicken out now!" Dina burst out laughing, she couldn't believe what she was hearing right now. 

"I am not chickening out.. I just found another game that looks fun."

"Chicken." Dina begins to flaps her arms.

"You know what." Ellie sits back down "Round two it is."

Meanwhile Joel had just woke up, he stretches before getting out of bed. The first thing that he did was look at his dresser and he read the note that Ellie wrote. It was her saying that she was going to hang out with Dina for the day. He chuckles as he put the note back down on the dresser. Ellie has been quite busy the last few weeks and Joel can't seem to catch up with her. He decides to make coffee before he sits outside and play guitar. Jesse was walking down the street and happens to walk by Joel's house. Since he didn't have anyone to talk to he approaches Joel.

"Do you mind if I sit with you?" Jesse was hovering over Joel.

Joel looks up and sees Jesse. "No I don't mind at all. I thought that you would be hanging out with Ellie and Dina."

Jesse sits down. "The girls want girl time together so I decided to leave them alone for today."

"Ah. I understand." Joel plays a note on his guitar.

"You know Ellie has a beautiful voice." Jesse mentions.

"Oh she does" Joel turns to Jesse and chuckles "I will have to ask her to sing to me one day. How are you and Dina"

Jesse looks down at the ground and rubs his hands together before answering. "Actually me and her broke up for good this time."

"Oh well I'm sorry to hear that." 

Jesse nods. 

Tommy approaches Joel and Jesse and sits with them.

"Well Jesse what brings you here?" Tommy does not get to see Jesse that much and he was wondering what he had been up to. 

"Well Ellie and Dina wanted some girl time so I am giving them some space." 

"Well it sounds like you need some guy time as well so feel free to chill with us." Tommy smiles at Jesse.

Jesse didn't want to go home yet because he knew that his parents would ask tons of questions of why he wasn't with the girls so he decided to sit and talk with them instead.

An hour had passed and the girls were just leaving the arcade to go to the bar. Ellie and Dina sat down at a table eating nachos as they waited for their drinks to be served. Ellie couldn't believe that she just let Dina talk her into drinking alcohol. They were both looking at the menu deciding what drinks they were going to get. Dina decides to get whisky while Ellie orders champagne.

"I still can't believe I agreed to do this." Ellie munches on her nachos.

"Well I can tell you that you won't regret it. It's just a shot glass" Dina assures.

The waiter comes by and hands their drinks. Dina watches as Ellie stares at her shot glass.

"Stop stalling and drink up!" 

Ellie playfully rolls her eyes before she takes a sip of the champagne. She felt a small burn in her throat.

Dina couldn't help but to burst out laughing. "You're too funny. Ellie your suppose to down the thing in one gulp."

"Well how am I suppose to know it's my first time!" Ellie downs the rest of the shot. She closes her eyes and clears her throat "Not bad. I think I want to try a glass."

"Hey Sammy could you give this girl another glass." Dina hollers.

"You got it!" she replies.

"So Ellie I was wondering if next week you and Joel could come over my mom's house for dinner. Since we are dating I think it would be a great way for them to find out about us." Dina reaches for Ellie's hand.

Ellie felt uncomfortable about Dina grabbing her hand in public. At the dance it was different because it was crowded and everyone was minding their business. Ellie felt more exposed at the bar, not only that but Joel does not know about her being gay and she does not know how he would react. 

"Your mom knows that you're bi?" Ellie was wondering how Dina told her mom about it.

"Yes she does."

"And she's not mad about it?"

"Nope. She actually had a feeling that I was before I came out."

Ellie's heart skips a beat. "Do you think Joel knows that I'm-" Ellie wasn't able to finish her sentence, her hands begins to shake. 

"Ellie don't worry even if he does know Joel is not the type to judge you. That man really cares about you and you being gay will not his mind." Dina begins to rub Ellie's hands to comfort her.

Their conversation was interrupted when the waiter places Ellie's drink between them.

Ellie drinks some more champagne while Dina was thinking of other places to go.

"Hey Ellie I was wondering if you would like to go to a comic book store."

Ellie nearly spits out her drink. "Are you shitting me! Of course I would like to go. Wait there was one in Jackson the whole time?"

Dina chuckles at Ellie's high enthusiasm. "Yes there's one in here. It's actually hidden. I think I'm the only one who found it. We can go, but there's only one thing we will have to be hella sneaky to get in." 

"You know I am down." Ellie puts down her drink that she didn't finish. "Let's go" 

Dina finishes up the rest of Ellie's drink before she followed behind Ellie. 

It was hard for the girls to sneak around Jackson without getting caught. Their other friends were trying to start a conversation with them, they had to make sure no one saw them looking suspicious and that no one caught them going into that area. When they were in the clear the two enters the abandoned building and covers up the exits. The comic book store was mostly dusty and it looks like no one has been here in months. The comic book even had an upstairs, after the two spent time downstairs searching for comic books they decided to go upstairs.

Ellie was so amazed at all the comic book she saw before her. She began to grab a few before she plummets on a couch nearby. "Woah look at this comic book! I never seen this one before." 

Dina joins Ellie on the couch. "Oh you're going to love this one!" Dina picks up a comic book as well and begins to read.

"Can you believe that Joel haven't found this place yet?" Ellie was quite shock she would love to bring him down here one day.

"Ellie.. I think this should be our secret hangout. If you tell everyone about this then it won't be such a secret anymore and besides don't you want these comic books to yourself?" 

Ellie thought about it for a moment. It was peaceful down here and she did like having all of these comic books for herself to read. "You're right, Dina. I'll stay quiet."

"You promise" Dina scoots closer to her holding out her pinky finger.

"I promise." Ellie smiles, crossing her pinky finger with Dina's. 

The two of them reads the comic books until Dina decides to break the silence. Dina was scooting closer to her giving up a big cheeky grin. Ellie was trying to keep focus on the book but was unable to.

"What?" Ellie blushes, as she focuses her attention all on Dina. "You never seen a girl read before."

"Have anyone told you how beautiful your eyes are?" Dina begins to start flirting with her again.

"No actually. Have anyone ever told you how silky and shiny your hair is?"

"My mom." Dina nods, putting her legs up on the couch "Have anyone told you how attractive your lips look." 

Ellie licks her lips trying to hide her smile while looking at Dina's lips. Dina could sense Ellie's motives and decides to moves in for the passionate kiss.

Once again Ellie's eyes shot wide open. It never seems to fail Ellie on how irresistible Dina can be. Ellie's heart began to race once more as the comic book she was reading slips out of her hand and onto the floor. The rush of adrenaline Ellie got as Dina begins to move her tongue into her mouth. Ellie adored the feeling of Dina's soft lips pressed against hers. Ellie felt like nothing exist except for the moment between them. Dina moves Ellie's strand hair behind her ear as she continues to press her tongue with Ellie's. Ellie begins to go down gently on Dina's neck peck kissing her. Dina tilts her head sideways letting out soft moan. Dina reaches over to Ellie's waist and snatches her pants down. The two race to take each others clothes off.

Ellie and Dina were naked, hugging each other tightly as they rub their clitoris together. Their moans escaping through the wet, lustful kisses. Dina begins to move her clitoris faster on Ellie's to get Ellie more aroused, she rubs Ellie's thighs. Ellie let out quite a loud moan that she thought was a bit embarrassing. 

Dina stop kissing her for a brief moment and chuckles. Dina whispers in Ellie's hear. "You like that don't you." Dina surprises Ellie by putting her finger inside her vagina and thrusting it.

Ellie was trying to suppress her loud moans. "Faster." Ellie whispers with desperation in her voice, her face was flushed red. 

Dina begins to tongue kiss Ellie again while thrusting her finger faster. Ellie begins to dig into Dina's back with her nails and she bites Dina's bottom lip. Dina lays on top of Ellie and begins to suck on her breast. Ellie touches Dina's bottom and begins to rub it before she smacks it.

"Damn girl you didn't tell me you were packing all of this." Ellie laughs as she continues to admire her bottom.

"I thought you already knew." Dina grins. 

Ellie begins to wrestle Dina for dominance. Ellie climbs on top of Dina and begins to kiss her on neck, going down to her stomach.

Dina was covering her eyes with her face and she felt her body heat up more "Lower."

Ellie went down to her clitoris and begins to massage it with her tongue. Ellie was enjoying how Dina taste. Ellie used her fingers to pleasure Dina while she was going down on her. 

"Harder." Dina moans while she had her legs wrapped around Ellie's back. 

Ellie decides not to listen to her. She wanted to tease Dina a bit.

"Say it louder."

"Harder!" Dina was hoping that it was loud enough for Ellie.

"I'm sorry I couldn't hear you."

"Harder, Ellie!" Dina moans loudly.

Ellie begins to move her tongue at a fast pace and thrusting her finger into Dina hard. Dina was breathing heavily. Dina decides to rub Ellie's clitoris and thrust her fingers into Ellie as well both of the girls begin to heavily breathe and moan reaching climax. 

Dina heard something, she decides to look up and saw her mom and Joel just walking into the room seeing them naked. "Mom!" Dina tries to cover herself.

Ellie stops what she was doing and she yells, Ellie was very embarrassed that she was caught in the act especially by Joel. 

Joel and Dina's mom quickly turns their backs away from the girls.

The girls rush to put on their clothes. Ellie's face turns even more red as she was tripping over herself to put on her clothes on as fast as possible. Ellie couldn't help but to burst out crying, she gets off the couch and storms out.

"Ellie wait!" Dina was fully clothed she was just trying to rush to put her shoes on. 

"I'll go talk to her." Joel reassures Dina. He tries to catch up with Ellie before she leaves the comic book store.

"Ellie!" Joel said in a deep voice.

Ellie ignores Joel and rushes down the spiral staircase with tears streaming down her face. 

"Ellie!" Joel calls out again as he jogs down the stairs.

Ellie stops while and briefly turns around at Joel. "Joel, leave me alone!" Ellie shouts with her eyes turning red. She was truly hurt. She continues to sob as she left the comic book store. 

Joel froze in his tracks, upset that his baby girl was hurt and didn't want to talk to him. 

As Ellie was storming out she bumps into Jesse knocking his nachos on the ground. Jesse didn't mind the mess she made, but he was concerned that Ellie was crying. Ellie hugs Jesse tightly. 

"Woah Ellie what's wrong?" Jesse rubs her on her back. 

"Jesse can I stay with you today?" 

"Sure you can come over my house for a little while." Jesse stops hugging Ellie and begins to walk toward his house

Ellie nods before following behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a little bit of a hard time writing this chapter but I am glad that it is finished. I look forward to writing some more chapters soon. Feel free to tell me what you guys think in the comments. Thank you guys so much for reading and until the next chapter have a good day.


	8. Only a Matter of Time

Ellie enters inside Jesse's house and approaches the kitchen. His house was very bright and it had shades of red and brown in his house. They had nice looking furniture and it was quite spacious in his house. His parents weren't at home, but Tommy was there helping out Jesse with something.

"Ellie what's wrong?" Tommy was sitting down at the kitchen table, seeing the tears streaming down her face. 

Ellie sits down at the table and tries to calm herself. "I can't tell you, Tommy." She was afraid that Tommy was going to judge her too. 

"Where's Dina? Did she know what happened?" Jesse joins the two at the table. 

Things began to feel a lot worse when Jesse brought up her name. 

"It's something that I did. Joel's going to be upset at me." Ellie was trying to contain herself from crying again. 

"Joel cares about you, Ellie. Whatever you're going through I'm sure he will understand and will be there for you." Jesse was trying to cheer up Ellie.

"I just think it will be better to avoid him"

"You're going to have to talk to him eventually. Sooner than later, or he's going to go on a manhunt to find you." Tommy chuckles.

"Yeah." Ellie sighs, "Can I have a glass of water?" 

"Sure thing." Tommy gets up and hands her water. He begins to stretch for a bit. "Well Ellie, I have to go. If you need anything you can come by my place" 

Ellie nods her head. Jesse gets up and leads Tommy to the door. Ellie couldn't help, but to wonder what's going to happen when they confront each other. 

Jesse sits back down at the table with Ellie, he notices that Ellie wasn't drinking her water she was just staring at it instead. 

"What happened?" Jesse wanted to ease into getting Ellie to talk. He noticed the pain in her eyes.

Ellie stayed silent.

There was a sudden knock on the door and Ellie begins to freak out. Jesse tries to calm her down, but Ellie begins to think of the worse case scenario. What if it was Joel knocking? She quickly hid in a nearby closet. Jesse walks over and opens the door.

"Is Ellie here?" Dina was a bit concerned about what happened earlier.

Ellie heard her voice and never felt so relieved, she comes out of the closet and gives Dina a tight hug. 

"Hey Ellie." Dina carefully kicks the door shut and she pats her on the back. 

Ellie felt a bit better having Dina hug her.

"Joel didn't follow you did he?" Ellie asks walking back at the table to sit

"No Ellie, it's just me."

"How did you know I was here?"

"Well I knew after what happened that you weren't going to go back to your house and you were going to try and avoid him" Dina joins Jesse and Ellie at the table.

"I don't know how to tell him." Ellie couldn't help but to think of the many possibilities of his reaction, her worse fear is that he would disown her.

"Ellie, you knew this day was going to come sooner or later." Dina was rubbing Ellie's back to comfort her. 

"Yeah, but I didn't know that it was going to be this soon." Ellie felt like this was all going too fast.

"Maybe we should stop talking about this" Jesse suggests "Ellie can tell him later. Are any of you two down for a drink and perhaps some movies?" he offers.

"We're down." Dina nods her head, "Isn't that right?" Dina should buds Ellie.

"I'm down" She clears her throat.

"Good." Jesse gets out of his chair and begins to head towards the living room.

Ellie and Dina sat in the living room, while they watch Jesse find a movie to watch. 

"Hey how about we watch Savage Starlight" Ellie suggest.

"How about we watch Savage Starlight" Jesse mocks Ellie. "There's other movies down here you know"

"Hey who are we trying to cheer up here and besides don't act like we didn't watch the same movie twice in one day" Dina throws her shoe at Jesse.

"Alright fine here." Jesse puts on the movie for them to watch. He comes to the couch and sits with them.

Ellie cuddles under Dina's arms, Dina began to play with Ellie's hair. Jesse tried not to pay attention to them while watching the movie. 

Meanwhile Joel had return to his home after his short search for Ellie, he had no idea on how he would react when he sees her. He just wanted Ellie to be okay. He felt like he has been dabbling in her life a little bit too much and this was the result of dabbling. There was a sudden knock at the door distracting Joel from his thoughts, he rushes to the door in hopes that it was Ellie, but he was greeted by his brother instead.

"Hey Joel, everything okay?" Tommy notices a unpleasant look on his face. 

"No." Joel says in a firm voice. "Have you seen Ellie?"

Tommy knew if he would of told Joel where was Ellie then his brother would have marched straight over there and it wouldn't be good for any of them. "No I haven't"

"God damnit" Joel sighs.

"She's okay right?" Tommy was pretending that he didn't know what happened.

"I don't know, can you come inside?"

Tommy goes inside his brother's house and they both sat at the kitchen table. 

"What happened?" Tommy was waiting for us brother to reply. 

"Don't tell Ellie I told you this, but Dina's mom and I walked in on Dina and Ellie having sex" Joel was still trying to wrap his head around the whole situation. "I tried to talk to Ellie and she stormed off, I don't even know if she's going to come back home today"

"Well Joel I think that you should give her time to come to you."

"It's probably going to be a while until that happens. I kept on dabbling with her life trying to catch up with her and now I fear I'm pushing her away even more" Joel sighs. "But your right I should give her more time."

"You know how teenagers can get with their busy lives, You should sit down with her and tell her how you feel about wanting to connect with her more. And about the situation try to take it easy on her, she's probably just as stressed as you are with the whole thing." Tommy suggest he wanted to make sure he gave his brother the best advice possible. "Is that all?" 

"Yes that is all, Thank you Tommy." Joel gets up and leads Tommy out.

Joel takes a deep breath and decides to watch tv hoping for Ellie to come home that night.

A few hours have passed. Ellie, Dina and Jesse had just finished watching movies. They were laughing it up about the movie they had just finished watching.

"Now that movie was hilarious remind me to tell Dina to pick the movies more often." Ellie chuckles. 

"Yeah I used to always let Dina pick the movies." Jesse smiles at Dina.

"Yeah it was because you were bad at picking movies. It was never a dull moment when I picked them." Dina chuckles at Jesse.

Ellie picks her head up from laying on Dina, Ellie looks down at the floor. She knew that Dina was right she would have to come out eventually and the more she waits she felt it would get worse.

Dina notices Ellie looking gloomy "Hey is everything okay?" Dina puts her hands on Ellie's shoulders.

Ellie nudges Dina's hands off her shoulders. "I think I'm going to go home." Ellie gets up, she could feel her palms beginning to sweat, she knew that the time was near.

"Okay Ellie, we're here if you need anything." Jesse reassures.

"Thanks." Ellie said in a soft voice before she heads out of Jesse's house. 

It was dark outside and the street lights were beginning to light up the town. Ellie begins to walk down the street, her thoughts were running rapidly through her head. Soon Ellie approaches her house holding onto her finger, she could feel her gut wrenching. She was even hesitant to knock on the door at first, but she knew that she would have to tell him sooner or later, there was no turning back now.

She knocks on the door and there was no reply at first which made her begin to worry, then she heard the locks beginning to turn. Joel opens the door. 

It was a awkward silence at first, Ellie couldn't tell if Joel was happy or upset to see her. Ellie decides to quickly break the silence.

"Hey Joel." It was hard for Ellie to utter his name, she breaks eye contact with Joel and decides to look down at the ground. She was still fiddling with her finger.

"Hi Ellie." Joel greets back, he wanted to listen to Tommy's advice so he was waiting on Ellie to talk. 

The awkward silence came back for a brief moment

"Is it okay if I come inside?" Ellie bit her lip to keep her voice from being wobbly.

Joel steps out of Ellie's way to let her walk inside, he shuts the door behind them. 

"Hey listen about back there- I'm sorry you walked in on that" Ellie felt the guilt beginning to rise up. "I was just being curious"

"Curious?" Joel raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms.

Joel's body language made Ellie more nervous, she could tell that he was buying into what she said. 

Ellie sighs. "No I-" Ellie was afraid to admit she was gay. "I don't know what's been going on I-" Ellie's voice cracks, she had tears forming in her eyes.

Joel could tell that she was about to have an emotional breakdown. He places his hands on Ellie's shoulders. "Hey kiddo, you can tell me anything. I won't be upset" he wipes the tear falling from Ellie's eye.

"I'm gay okay, I really like Dina." Ellie felt like she released a huge burden off of her chest. "And if you can't accept me for who I am then I'll go and never speak to you again." 

"Ellie, Ellie!" Those words frighten Joel to his core, he couldn't imagine Ellie leaving him. "I don't think any less of you"

She collapses into Joel's arms crying. 

Joel catches Ellie and hugs her tightly. "It's okay baby girl" he rubs her back. 

Ellie hugs him tighter. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize for who you are." 

Ellie nods her head and stops hugging Joel. The two make eye contact again. This time Joel had a warming smile on his face glad that she told him. Ellie sniffles and return the smile.

"I guess I will head to bed now." Ellie was beginning to walk upstairs until Joel stops her.

"Ellie, it's my fault I shouldn't have been looking for you."

"Why were you looking for me? You didn't see the note I laid out for you?"

"Oh I did, I actually want to get something off my chest too." 

Ellie walks back down the stairs to face Joel. "Well don't keep me waiting, unlike what I did to you." she chuckles.

"Recently I've been wanting to hang out with you, I know you have a busy life, and I apologize for trying to dabble in your life." Joel also felt relieve to get that off his chest.

"We can hang out tomorrow if you'd like." Ellie smiles.

"I'd love too!" Joel was trying to contain his excitement.

"Alright well I will see you tomorrow." Ellie walks back up the stairs. 

"Goodnight Ellie." Joel begins to head to his room.

"Night."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone I know it has been ages since I last published a chapter. I have been so busy with college since I am going to graduate soon. I hope you guys have been doing well and getting ready for the holidays coming up. I hope you guys have a beautiful day and thank you all so much for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't uploaded on this site in a while. I actually forgot about this site but I do plan to post on here more.


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